1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the technique for multiple shooting of images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multiple shooting is a technique to create splendid visual effects that cannot be achieved from a single shot by composing an image either from multiple shots of an object or from an image decoded from an image file and a shot image. As used herein, the processing of adding a piece of image data to another is referred to as composition and repeated shooting of images is referred to as multiple shooting.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-271427 describes a method of adding a shot image and a separate image for composition to generate a composite image. This method comprises converting the image for composition based on information obtained during the shooting of the shot image before generating the composite image. Additionally, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-300372 describes a method of recording composite image data along with information for restoring the pre-composition image data.
However, if multiple shooting is performed under conditions with different ISO speeds or conditions with different resize rates or different brightness correction gains, images with different amounts of noise, dynamic ranges, and resolutions are added to generate a composite image. This may results in inadequate parameters for development processing, thus adversely affecting the appearance of the image.